Hedge Fund and Insider Trading News: Anthony Scaramucci, Bridgewater Associates, Archegos Capital Management, Breacher Capital Management, Apeira Capital Advisors, EPAM Systems Inc (EPAM), Zumiez Inc. (ZUMZ), and More

Anthony Scaramucci Says the COVID-Driven Sell-Off is a Buying Opportunity in Stocks and Crypto — and Calls it a ‘Mini March of 2020’ (Business Insider)
Friday’s brutal market sell-off is a buying opportunity for both stocks and crypto assets, Anthony Scaramucci of investment firm SkyBridge Capital said on CNBC. Global stocks and oil prices cratered Friday as investors ran for cover following the discovery of a new, highly mutated COVID-19 strain in South Africa, which has raised the prospect of further lockdowns and travel bans. The S&P 500 was last down 2%, while oil futures dropped more than 10%.

From Bridgewater to Templeton, Money Managers Warm Up to Unloved Chinese Tech Stocks (South China Morning Post)
From Bridgewater Associates to BlackRock and Franklin Templeton, some of the world’s biggest stock investors have one thing in common when it comes to China. Valuations are cheap again to get back into the market. Bridgewater, the world’s biggest hedge fund with US$220 billion of assets, ploughed some US$400 million into US-listed Chinese stocks in the third quarter, the Post estimated based on its 13F filing. It held positions in 45 mostly tech-related stocks valued at US$1.7 billion.

Fed: Archegos Debacle Study Shows Weakness at Its Banks (The Street)
‘The event has so far revealed weaknesses in margin practices and counter-party risk management at some firms,’ the Fed said in a new report. The March default of a major hedge fund over stock positions gone bad points to weaknesses at the banks that handled its activity, according to a new Federal Reserve report. “Archegos Capital Management, an investment firm heavily concentrated in a small number of U.S. and Chinese technology and media companies, defaulted March 26, causing over $10 billion in losses across several large banks, principally outside the U.S.,” the Fed said in the report released earlier this week.

Countries with the Smallest Government Per Capita in the World

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Apeira Capital Hunts VC Returns from Both Rising and Falling Valuations (Euro Money)
A new venture capital investment firm targeting private technology companies is deploying a multi-directional strategy that it hopes will make money from start-ups that are overvalued as well those on the rise. It is hard to know quite how to describe Apeira Capital Advisors, an investment firm that was launched in early 2020 and has just taken its first position, investing in a $200 million Series E funding round for San Francisco foodtech company GrubMarket. Moves such as that make Apeira look like a classic venture capital fund, but by also designing bespoke derivative technology to short to short private companies that it thinks are overvalued, it looks more like a hedge fund. The way founder and managing partner Natalie Hwang tells it, it sounds like both.

Breacher Capital Management Rebounds in October (Opalesque)
After a tricky September and October for hedge funds, emerging manager Breacher Capital Management has rebounded to a new high net asset value and posted positive returns. The flagship Breacher Absolute Return Partners Strategy was up 3.32% in October and is up 8.26% year to date through October. According to an investor letter obtained by Opalesque, long bets in energy, fertilizer, semiconductors, and banks lifted performance along with shorts in medical and enterprise software names. Breacher runs three variants of its long/short strategy, increasing in risk tolerance. The Partners long/short strategy is a concentrated portfolio that can take a contrarian view of the market as it looks for investment opportunities. The Enhanced fund is a slightly less aggressive version of this strategy and the Core fund is a market-neutral fund with the lowest risk of the three.

Cooper Creek Partners North America Long/Short Equity UCITS Fund Achieves +7.21 per cent Annualised Return (Hedge Week)
The Cooper Creek Partners North America Long/Short Equity UCITS Fund, which launched on Waystone’s MontLake UCITS Platform on 12 November 2018, marked its third UCITS anniversary this month, November 2021. Since inception to October-end 2021, the fund has produced +23.24 per cent total return, +7.21 per cent annualised return with a low average net exposure and a 0.15 correlation to the MSCI World Index. The fund’s low net exposure and focus on under-the-radar and unloved stocks within the small and mid-cap space in North America has enabled the fund to successfully navigate the volatile Covid-19 crisis months (up +4 per cent in March 2020), the momentum driven recovery of late 2020 into 2021, as well as the strong equity market of 2019.

Epam Systems Inc (EPAM) CEO, President, Chairman Arkadiy Dobkin Sold $3.3 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
CEO, President, Chairman of Epam Systems Inc, Arkadiy Dobkin, sold 5,000 shares of EPAM on 11/23/2021 at an average price of $661.37 a share. The total sale was $3.3 million.

The Co- CEO of Markel (NYSE: MKL) is Buying Shares (Analyst Ratings)
Yesterday, the Co- CEO of Markel (MKL), Thomas Sinnickson Gayner, bought shares of MKL for $31.28K. Following Thomas Sinnickson Gayner’s last MKL Buy transaction on February 18, 2016, the stock climbed by 413.9%. The company has a one-year high of $1343.56 and a one-year low of $942.44. Currently, Markel has an average volume of 46.15K. MKL’s market cap is $17.25 billion and the company has a P/E ratio of 7.20.

Customers Bancorp Inc (CUBI) Chairman & CEO Jay S Sidhu Sold $1.5 million of Shares (Guru Focus)
Chairman & CEO of Customers Bancorp Inc, Jay S Sidhu, sold 25,000 shares of CUBI on 11/23/2021 at an average price of $58 a share. The total sale was $1.5 million.

5 Stocks Insiders Are Selling (Benzinga)
Zumiez: The Trade: Zumiez Inc. (ZUMZ) Chairman Thomas Campion disposed a total of 40453 shares at an average price of $55.13. The insider received $2,230,173.89 as a result of the transaction. Vonage Holdings: The Trade: Vonage Holdings Corp. (VG) Director Jeffrey A Citron sold a total of 25000 shares at an average price of $20.41. The insider received $510,250.00 from selling those shares. Children’s Place: The Trade: The Children’s Place, Inc. (PLCE) President and CEO Jane Elfers sold a total of 62259 shares at an average price of $104.09. The insider received $6,480,539.31 as a result of the transaction.